s paws apart carefully; thrusts his nose down
between them; drags a young wood-mouse from under the moss; eats him;
licks his chops twice, and goes on planning as if nothing had
happened.

"On the way back, I'll swing round by the Fales place, and take a
sniff under the wall by the old hickory, to see if those sleepy skunks
are still there for the winter. I'll have that whole family before
spring, if I'm hungry and can't find anything else. They come out on
sunny days; all you have to do is just hide behind the hickory and
watch."

So off he goes on his well-planned hunt; and if you follow his track
to-morrow in the snow, you will see how he has gone from one hunting
ground directly to the next. You will find the depression where he lay
in a clump of tall dead grass and watched a while for the rabbit;
reckon the number of mice he caught in the meadow; see his sly tracks
about the chicken coop, and in the orchard; and pause a moment at the
spot where he cast a knowing look behind the hickory by the wall,--all
just as he planned it on his way to the brook.

If, on the other hand, you stand by one of his runways while the dogs
are driving him, expecting, of course, to see him come tearing along
in a desperate hurry, frightened out of half his wits by the savage
uproar behind him, you can only rub your eyes in wonder when a fluffy
yellow ball comes drifting through the woods towards you, as if the
breeze were blowing it along. There he is, trotting down the runway in
the same leisurely, self-possessed way, wrapped in his own thoughts
apparently, the same deep wrinkles over his eyes. He played a trick or
two on a brook, down between the ponds, by jumping about on a lot of
stones from which the snow had melted, without wetting his feet (which
he dislikes), and without leaving a track anywhere. While the dogs are
puzzling that out, he has plenty of time to plan more devices on his
way to the big hill, with its brook, and old walls, and rail fences,
and dry places under the pines, and twenty other helps to an active
brain.

First he will run round the hill half a dozen times, crisscrossing his
trail. That of itself will drive the young dogs crazy. Then along the
top rail of a fence, and a long jump into the junipers, which hold no
scent, and another jump to the wall where there is no snow, and then--

"Oh, plenty of time, no hurry!" he says to himself, turning to listen
a moment. "That dog with the big voice must be old R